BAGHDAD — Every school day morning five fathers stand guard outside a girls' high school in west Baghdad, making sure their daughters are not kidnapped and raped.
From the opening to the closing tinkles of the school bell, they peer suspiciously into the chaotic street when cars slow down or strangers loiter.
At noon on this day, Mohammed Abdel-Hassan pries his two daughters away from a circle of chatting girls in navy-blue uniforms and takes them home. The next day, five different fathers will have watch duty under the scorching sun, in shifts organized by a newly formed committee of men dedicated to keeping their daughters both safe and in school.
The insecurity that reigns in Iraq is the defining reality of postwar life. But the lawlessness is felt disproportionately by young women and girls who have yet to complete their education.
In one of the most secular capitals in the Arab world, where women were until recently a visible and integrated part of public life, females have all but disappeared. Men are the ones doing the shopping, turning up for what jobs remain and helping plan the future of Iraq with the U.S. reconstruction authority.
"There's so little security, and they are vulnerable as girls," said Abdel-Hassan. "We hear rumors constantly of kidnappings and rape."
In fact, the recorded numbers are small, but in a city with few police on the street and where law and order are at best tenuous, even talk of such crimes is enough to stir worry.
The fear of rape in the city is now so widespread that families are rearranging their daily activities around providing security for their daughters. Dedicated fathers such as Abdel-Hassan take personal steps to ensure their safety at school, but many who are unable or disinclined to take on an additional burden are simply opting to keep their daughters at home.
"We decided to give up on this school year entirely," said Ziad Hussein Ali, who hires out his services as a driver. He said his daughter's schooling is important to him but that his long hours don't allow him to drive her around himself. "Being safe is more important than being a year behind."
In Iraqi society, still shaped by tribal norms that define a family's honor by its women's reputations, there is no greater shame than rape. Rapes are only rarely reported, though, because news of a sexual assault would sully a family's name and doom the victim to either marrying her assailant or a stigmatized life of spinsterhood.
